21. THE OLD SCHOOL TIE / OLDBOY NETWORK

　　21.老校情结/母校情谊

　　The way in which men who have been to the same expensive private school, help each other to find good jobs.

　　毕业于同一私立学校的人会相互帮助寻找好工作。

　　The old school tie still has enormous power in most City companies.

　　在多数城市的公司中，母校情谊的力量仍不可小觑。

　　They don’t make any effort to find a job for themselves, the oldboy network does it all for them.

　　他们对找工作一点不上心，在这方面，同校情谊发挥了很大作用。

　　22. BRAINSTORM

　　22.头脑风暴

　　To try to develop an idea or think of new ideas.

　　尝试发展新理念或创造新理念。

　　Let’s all separate into groups and try to brainstorm as many suggestions as possible for the next school play.

　　那就让我们分为几组，针对下一场校园剧提出尽可能多的建议。

　　23. AN OLD HEAD ON YOUNG SHOULDERS

　　23.少年老成

　　A child or young person who thinks and talks like an older person who has more life experience.

　　言谈举止接近阅历丰富的老者似的孩子或少年。

　　Emily doesn’t fit in with the children at her school, she’s definitely an old head on young shoulders. She talks to them like a parent or teacher would!

　　艾米丽和校园里别的孩子不一样，她十分成熟。跟同学讲话的神情活像家长或老师!

　　24. CALL THE ROLL / TAKE THE ROLL

　　24.点名

　　To call the names of a group of people (or students) and expect them to respond to show they are present.

　　对一群人(或一组学生)点名以期待回应，表示其在场。

　　Jamie called the roll on the coach before we left to make sure that everyone had arrived.

　　杰米在车厢开动前点名，确保每个人都到了。

　　25. CRACK A BOOK

　　25. 打开课本学习

　　To open a book to study (usually used in a negative sense).

　　打开课本学习(通常是不情愿的)。

　　I kept telling my mum I didn’t need to study too hard for this exam because it’s easy, she wouldn’t listen to me though. She insisted I crack a book every evening!

　　虽然我反复地跟母亲讲这次考试十分简单，无须准备，但她根本不听。坚持要求我彻夜温习课本。

　　26. CRANK OUT A PAPER

　　26.机械地写论文

　　To write a paper or essay in a mechanical way.

　　机械地创作论文或文章。

　　I had to crank out a new paper every week to pass this course. It was really hard work!

　　为了通过这门考试，我不得不每周想办法写出一篇论文。真是太累了!

　　27. FILL IN THE BLANKS

　　27.填空

　　To supply missing words or information (this can be used in conversation or writing).

　　补上缺少的单词或信息(一般出现在对话或写作)。

　　I wasn’t here when the argument happened, so John filled in the blanks for me.

　　发生争执的时候我不在场，约翰可以告诉我究竟怎么回事。

　　28. LEARN BY ROTE

　　28.死记硬背

　　To learn something by memorising it without giving any thought to what is being learnt.

　　不加思考地记忆某项内容。

　　They had to learn the lyrics to two new songs by rote just before the show.

　　演出前，他们必须背下两首新歌的歌词。

　　29. LEARN THE ROPES

　　29.摸清门道

　　To learn how to do a job properly, or how things work.

　　熟悉工作内情或操作原理。

　　It took me a while to learn the ropes in this law firm, some of their procedures are so complicated.

　　我花了一段时间才摸清这个律师事务所的工作流程，一些程序实在太繁琐了。